DoT may issue LoIs for telecom licences

PTIOct 21, 2007, 05.08pm IST

NEW DELHI: Finding it difficult to scrutinise a sea of applications for telecom licences, the government is contemplating to issue Letters of Intent to all applicants and ask them to pay a fee of about Rs 1,650 crore (for pan-India operations) but without giving any time-frame for spectrum.

This would not only help in scrutinising the applications but would also help in keeping non-serious players out of fray, sources said.

They, however, said that a final decision in this regard would be taken soon.

Telecom Commission has met several times to deal with the situation and has forwarded comments to Telecom Minister A Raja for finalising the policy.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has received over 570 applications from companies, including AT&T, Ispat Industries promoters Mittal brothers, Hindujas, HFCL, Shyam Telecom and a host of reality players such as DLF, Parsavnath and Unitech.

The last week's decision of DoT to grant permission for using dual technology--CDMA and GSM-- for mobile services has irked the existing players, with Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) likely to challenge the decision in sectoral tribunal TDSAT.

On top of it if LoIs were issued by the DoT, the decision may hurt existing players.

COAI, when contacted, however, declined to comment on it. The association has also opposed DoT's decision to accept telecom regulator TRAIs recommendation of enhanced subscriber- linked criterion for spectrum allocation as with this most of the existing players would not be eligible for additional spectrum.